What's a more depressing happy-hour hangout on your average Thursday: A sports club at 5 p.m., or a strip club at the same time? At Fast Eddies/Archibalds, the double threat located at 1520 K Street NW, we find out!

UPSTAIRS: Fast Eddies, sports bar. At 5 o'clock, a guy in a suit is alone at the bar, save for a Miller Light, a plate of french fries, and the bartender, who sits on the wrong side of her job to plug quarters into the video poker machine. A couple women sit in the back with coats draped over their shoulders and six-inch heels strapped to their feet. A row of televisions above the bar show no sports in this sports bar---just some muted talking heads and an infomercial for the no-break, no-bend, money-back-guarantee "SlimClip." (You put dollars in it). When a regular comes in asking for a vodka martini, dirty, the bartender reclaims her station to tell him to reconsider: She can't make it dirty, and besides, the shot glass is bigger than the martini glass anyway. He gets a straight shot of vodka and sits down.

DOWNSTAIRS: Archibald's can make it dirty. Depression? Recession? Marriage? Not at Archibalds, where all the women all naked, garterbelts are overflowing, and everyone---especially the eccentric man in the vest standing very close to that dancing woman---is smiling. One middle-aged patron, who has a stripper in his right hand and a wedding ring on his left, only appears depressed when he has to say goodbye.

Archibald's is a "gentleman's club," and its bustling economy depends on the strange gender dynamics at play. Like any bar, there are about equal numbers of men and women here. The only difference is that when a woman talks to a man, he's expected to provide her a regular stream of cash. Also, boobs.

All the women here---the women in the schoolgirl uniforms passing drinks, the ones shimmying on stage one and two, and myself---are getting paid. When I enter, the bouncer doesn't even think to card me. Later, he asks for my ID and admits that he had mistakenly assumed that I worked there. Despite the very overt female presence, some of the men here say that they actually come to avoid women---their wives and girlfriends, of course, but possible dates, too. I sit down at a table with four collared-shirted businessmen who are taking turns rising, trotting over to the main stage, and depositing a dollar bill in the band wrapped tight around the stripper's thigh. I apologize for ruining their game. "Don't worry---My game just keeps on going," one of the men tells me. Later, he admits that the real game hasn't even started yet. The four men are just making a quick stop at Archibald's before happy hour. Soon, they'll head to Clarenden, where they'll actually try to pick up women.

When the main-stage stripper has finished removing her clothes and then putting them back on, she stops at our table and introduces herself as Tabbitha. She tells me I've come to the wrong place if I'm looking for an average strip club---Archibald's employees are "prettier and nicer" than most D.C. clubs. "I've heard that Camelot is supposed to have the most beautiful girls, but I've been there, and I just don't think that's true anymore," she says. Plus, Archibald's women skimp on the attitude. "We just don't deal with the diva thing here," she says. "The dancers, the customers, everyone is very, very nice, and that's really important to me. There's no weird stuff. There's no funny business. It's just a nice place."

One of the businessmen puts his arm around Tabbitha and slips her a bill. "What, you want change?" she says, rifling through her stack of ones. The man laughs like a boy. His friend leans over and informs the table: "You know, some of the girls even meet their husbands here," he says---indicating that not all of Archibald's clientelle come here to escape average life.

Tore has been selling sex toys at Dupont sexuality emporium the Pleasure Place for a couple months now. Before that, she was selling cars at Eastern Motors. Pleasure Place is easier, on average. "I have to like what I do," says Tore. "And I like sex."

So it didn't take long for Tore to learn the shop's selection of prostate probes, anal douches, and vibrating rings like---well---the back of her hand. "No time, really," says Tore. "No time. I knew nothing about half of this stuff until I started working here. But there's not a lot for us to do here, so it's like one-on-one with the products most of the time," she says.

Beyond helping women try on stripper heels and accommodating hordes of pre-party bachelorette crews, working at the Pleasure Place includes a lot of down time. "Usually I'm just chilling out, messing with the toys," Tore says. But it's more than just fucking around: The practice helps Tore field a barrage of obvious-to-obscure queries from customers. "What's this for? How does this work? Where do I put this?" says Tore. "They'll ask anything, man, really."

SEX SHOP STATS:

Average vibrator size: Eight inches, Tore says: The biggest they offer is 10 inches; the smallest, six.

Average dildo color: "Most people like the flesh color, something pretty close to their own skin."

Average number of batteries sold per week: About 200.

Average customer: Not applicable. "We got strippers, gay men, lesbians, straight freaky people."

Average item: The Pleasure Place's most popular item is the "The Rabbit," a vibrator that Tore says has been endorsed by both Oprah and the ladies of Sex and the City. Tore plucks a couple batteries from behind the register to show the basics of the Rabbit---what it's for, how it works, where you put it. "The ears move fast to stimulate the clitoris," Tore explains, making the machine's little critter bounce. "And you can bend it to hit the G-spot," she says, making the flexible dildo move at inhuman angles. "You can't get a penis to do that," she says.

Perhaps Tore's learned a little too much about the product for the store's own good.

"What are the pearls for?" a customer asks.

"They make it cost five dollars more," says Tore.

The average day at Dupont Circle's Leather Rack (1723 Cionnecticut Avenue NW) is becoming less leathery these days. "Fetish wear has really taken a downturn in the last year," says Chaz, the store's general manager. The bad times have steered customers away from higher end items---$334 leather chaps, for example---and toward cheaper stuff. "Let's say you buy a whole Army uniform. That's all you can wear," says Chaz, referring to the steep prices for such items.

So customers are moving toward more subtle and masculine wear, like the twill officer's pant--which looks like the sort of highway patrol trou sported by Ponch and John on "CHiPs"---or the rescue pant, which has two stripes on the side that are kinda reflective. More practical items, says Chaz, are still selling. Today, for instance, he is putting tags on a new item: Oxballs---a ball stretcher that replaces the traditional leather with neoprene silicone material.

Chaz finds the fetish industry more lucrative that the real-estate industry he left one year ago.

By Amanda Hess

It's 9:30 a.m. at Whitman Walker's Max Robinson Center in Anacostia. In the HIV testing area, a woman and a man are filling out their sexual histories on a piece of paper. Some of the questions:

Have you used IV drugs in the last 12 months?
Have you had sex while intoxicated?
When having anal receptive sex (was penetrated), I practice safe sex always/sometimes/never/doesn't apply.

A sign in the lobby tells patients to stay put until they're called.

The man goes upstairs for the test. Once he's up there, the woman cranes her neck around the staircase, in full eavesdropping mode. "That's my husband," she says. "He better not be telling any lies."

After ten minutes, the man comes downstairs with a Band-Aid wrapped around his middle finger. "Ain't nothing wrong with that," he says. "I know I'm all right."

The woman heads up for her test. The man, meanwhile, has been told he has to wait 20 minutes for his results, so he heads out to get something to drink. He tells me, "Tell my fiancee I'll be right back."

The man returns moments later carrying a paper bag. Then the buzzer rings three times; the man's test is ready. He goes upstairs, while I wait with his wife/fiancee/whatever. "We need an 'N,' not a 'P,' "she tells me. "Or I'm going to kill him."

Then he comes back downstairs with his head in his hands. He looks crushed. "I'm going to kill somebody," he whispers. "Let's go," the woman says. The man laughs and lifts his head. "Now you gotta buy me breakfast--salmon cakes," he says.

But the woman still has to await her results, which gives the man a moment for commentary. "You know, a lot of African Americans don't want to know. You know, she told me all the five ways you can catch it," he says. Those five ways are via blood, semen, pre-cum, breastmilk, and vaginal fluid. "All the info I've been getting here is A+."

The man and woman make plans to get high later. "You like to get high?" the man asks me. "There's nothing wrong with it. You ever get high?"

I tell him I have.

"What's your drug of choice?" he asks.

"Not crack," I tell him.

"Needles? Needles can give you HIV, too. That's how my mother passed--took a needle from someone else"

--By Amanda Hess